The new Congress is likely to put new and stronger emphasis on limiting junk food marketing, say aides to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Harkin becomes chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee in 2007. His aides report that food marketing to children "will be one of our top tier agenda items." In recent years, Harkin futilely has sought to push through legislation toughening Federal Trade Commission authority to regulate junk food marketing. Thirty years ago, attempts to limit ads to kids based upon concerns about tooth decay failed. Since then, obesity has become a high profile issue, with the rate of overweight children more than doubling. A coalition of food makers that controls about two-thirds of food and drink ads to children under 12 has announced voluntary advertising guidelines, but "half of the ads [are] still selling junk food," says Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

PR Week's "PR Toolbox" column has some helpful hints for placing audio news releases (ANRs), the radio cousin of video news releases (VNRs). "The use of guaranteed airings has become an attractive option for clients," says Christopher Sweet of VNR-1 Communications. With "guaranteed airings," Sweet explains, "spot time is purchased, but the ANR airs in its entirety during a prime-time news segment. The result is an airing which is sufficiently embedded in news programming and garners all the potential audience numbers the network of choice has to offer." Sweet suggests that interested companies hire "broadcast PR vendors with strong radio-network relationships" to find a "guaranteed airings system that suits your concept and budget." The column does not mention how to ensure listeners' right to know that such segments are sponsored PR material.

Former CIA analyst and National Security Council official Flynt Leverett has accused the White House of trying "to silence his criticism of Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote." Leverett said the CIA's attempt to remove already-public information about prior U.S. contacts with Iran from his op-ed is intended "to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach." A CIA spokesman said the agency's review of the op-ed is ongoing, and "more often than not the issues are worked out." An anonymous White House official dismissed Leverett's claims, saying, "There was nothing political here." Leverett's op-ed faults the administration for not taking Tehran up on a 2003 offer to "settle several disputes between the two countries," and predicts that "any deal that Washington made now would be on less favorable terms, because Iran had gained strength in the region and the United States was tied down in Iraq."

According to internal marketing documents, "Eli Lilly encouraged primary care physicians to use Zyprexa, a powerful drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in patients who did not have either condition." Under U.S. law, companies can't promote "prescription drugs for conditions for which they have not been approved ... although doctors can prescribe drugs to any patient they wish." Yet documents leaked to the New York Times describe "a multiyear promotional campaign" called "Viva Zyprexa," in which "Lilly told its sales representatives to suggest that doctors prescribe Zyprexa to older patients with symptoms of dementia." One document states "dementia should be first message" for primary care doctors, since they "do not treat bipolar" or schizophrenia, but "do treat dementia." Three months after its launch, the Zyprexa campaign "led to 49,000 new prescriptions. ... In 2002, the company changed the name of the primary care campaign to 'Zyprexa Limitless' and began to focus on people with mild dipolar disorder who had previously been diagnosed as depressed -- even though Zyprexa has been approved only for the treatment of mania in bipolar disorder, not depression."